Plans for getting more reading done

Thank goodness, I worked my way through The Hippopotamus, and have moved onto Stephen King's Duma Key. Still struggling to find time to get any proper reading in though -bedtime seems the only reasonable option so far, but I'm usually so tired by that point that I fall asleep, drop the book and lose my place. Maybe going to bed earlier might be a good idea!

I'm hoping that maternity leave will give me a chance to catch up a bit - I have a lovely mound of Christmas books to work my way through, and have just been lent four murder mysteries, all of which look really good. I can see an upcoming reading opportunity though and it's this: breastfeeding. Keep reading, this does make sense, I promise. When I was breastfeeding Isabel, I could never manage to have the telly on (she used to try to twist round, while remaining clamped onto me, in her efforts to see the screen - really quite painful), but I could always read. I used to glory in that 40 minute feed before bed time (it probably didn't need to be that long, but I loved it because it was just solid reading time). Night feeding is less fun, since I always did it in the dark because I didn't want her to think it was time to get up and play. 40 minutes of sitting in the dark staring at a digital clock I could do without, but I've realised that this could be an excellent excuse for me to invest in the iPod Touch which I've been craving for ages, and read an e-book. Or I could buy the audio book edition of whatever I'm reading in print, and carry on from where I left off! All this will take some planning I think....

One thing I am reading more of, while we're on the topic, is children's classics. Isabel's always been a book fiend (inherited from both Husbandio and myself, I think!) and we've now started going through the books which I kept from my childhood - longer books than can be read in a single sitting, in other words. We've spent the last week reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it's just marvellous, beautifully written and she's been entranced. Once we finished, we watched the 1970s movie (with Gene Wilder) and will watch the Johnny Depp one soon too. Then it's on to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and then the world's our oyster. Suggestions for other books to follow are most welcome!